<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>The Image Has Cracked by pssychotropical</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26635480">The Image Has Cracked</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/pssychotropical/pseuds/pssychotropical'>pssychotropical</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>NCT (Band)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Bohemianism, Infidelity, Love Triangle, M/M, Misunderstandings, Possible Polyamory, a little bit of an age gap, haven't figured out the ending yet, post-punk band mates</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 08:08:56</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>9,680</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26635480</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/pssychotropical/pseuds/pssychotropical</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Yuta is a stranger who allows the seventeen year old Mark to move into his dilapidated house after running away from home. Johnny is Yuta's rock band boyfriend.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Mark Lee/Nakamoto Yuta, Mark Lee/Nakamoto Yuta/Suh Youngho | Johnny, Mark Lee/Suh Youngho | Johnny, Nakamoto Yuta/Suh Youngho | Johnny</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>68</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Image Has Cracked</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p> </p><p>There's an old single bed standing in the middle of the kitchen.</p><p>Things pushed to the sides, an old lamp with no bulb to the right and a pile of books to the left, in the middle of the bed is seated Johnny. He's holding a piece of paper, crooked cigarette in his mouth and back propped against an old cooker unplugged to the electricity. Kitchen and the main room are the only rooms upstairs where there's ceiling lighting. That's why Johnny's here. He's writing. Perhaps. Mark's peaking at him from the corridor.</p><p>It's hard to cross the corridor without being noticed because you always bump into things on your way.</p><p>A kitchen unit with a broken door, on it an empty bucket of white paint, a roller, unwashed rags. As you walk forward, you walk into a row of plant pots. Then, there's a hole in the floor where the parquet blocks fell off. The final obstacle is the set of: two loudspeakers, amplifier, gramophone, all spread at the entry to the kitchen. You gotta take a big long step to walk over the cables stretched and hanging in the air.</p><p>Mark's clumsy; he momentarily loses his balance and his clumsy foot nudges the gramophone. The vinyl scratches; Johnny raises his eyes. As he cranes his neck in Mark's direction, the cigarette moves between his heart-shaped lips and the ashes collected at the tip twinkle orange and drop to the linoleum floor that is said to have been yellow back in the days. Now it's black. There's dust and dead flies on the windowsill.</p><p>It's a little bit of a performance coming into the kitchen. With all the moves he has to make, holding the wall to keep his balance, Mark feels Johnny's stare on himself and grows self-conscious as a result.</p><p>"Why you're in the kitchen?" he goes, then clears his throat.</p><p>Johnny smiles before pointing at the heater under the window. "This one's heating the best," he says. He's wearing two sweaters, one on top of the other, jeans jacket on top of both. Mark's been told they're running out of coal. "Steady, boy!" Johnny says when the vinyl says it.</p><p>The house is Yuta's, inherited from his aunt with all the clutter already inside, everything four shades darker than originally because of the thick layer of dirt and smoke that's collected over time. You go places and you get your hands filthy even if you make sure not to touch anything. The floor crunches under your feet. Except for the main room, nothing else has been cleaned. Aunt's pink velvet bathrobe is hanging from the door handle, like it's been left there in hurry on her last day of life.</p><p>Speaking of Yuta, Yuta isn't home. If he was, Mark knows there would be enough noise to recognise his presence, localise him in space and time at the speed of an eye blink. Yuta's currently unemployed, according to Mark's standards. But if someone asks Yuta about his job, he can explain in detail:</p><p>"You go to the thrift store," Yuta said many times, cigarette smoke blurring the movement of his parched pair of lips. "You take the rags to the laundromat. Wash them. Make them nice and cool. Go to the market. Sell the rags three or four times the price you bought them for. That's a job, wouldn't you say? Not everyone has the sense of aesthetics that it takes."</p><p>How most people know Yuta is from his stall in the market where he sells clothes three or four times the thrift store price. He's good-looking and people like buying stuff from good-looking guys like Yuta.</p><p>Other than that, Yuta's daily activities tend to be limited to chain smoking, flipping the vinyl to the other side and wiping off the dust so it doesn't stutter and skip. Rinse and repeat.</p><p>One more fact to know about Yuta is that he's Johnny's boyfriend. But that's unofficial. If you ask any of Johnny's band members, they say they don't know anything.</p><p>Everybody keeps quiet about how serious Johnny and Yuta are.</p><p>"What you doing?" Mark asks then, taking sunflower seeds from the back pocket of his jeans. He puts a shell between his front teeth and cracks it open, waiting for Johnny to respond.</p><p>Johnny lifts the crumpled piece of paper on which he's been writing before Mark's arrival. "Lyrics," he says, like it's not a big deal at all. Then he pushes the piece into the front pocket of his jeans jacket. Then pushes both his hands into pockets. He further leans against the cooker.</p><p>One of the things Mark likes about the man is the way he keeps himself at a frivolous distance from things. Never seems to take them too seriously. Johnny's cool-headed silhouette, in his rock band clothes, always at a frivolous distance, allowing the wind to play with his longish brown hair, with a cigarette between those heart-shaped, kissable lips--</p><p>Somewhat surprised by his own stream of consciousness, Mark winces.</p><p>Things crumble back down and his heart aches because it's never been his intention to feel this way towards Yuta's boyfriend. And yet, here he is.</p><p>He cracks open another shell. "Cool," he comments. About the lyrics.</p><p>Johnny smiles.</p><p>A moment later, the sound comes from the heater, of someone two floors below, down in the basement, throwing coal into the burning furnace.</p><p>Spool backwards.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The story starts three years back, on a rainy night, with Mark walking on the side of the road and trying to hitch a ride out of town. What it all comes down to is that Yuta's car happens to be the first one to stop, and Mark doesn't get to be picky; his clothes are soaked, there's water in one of his plimsolls and walking forward as the rain keeps smashing him in the face no longer seems like an option.</p><p>Turns out that his whole plan wasn't that well thought of to begin with.</p><p>So the car comes to a halt and Mark gets in with no hesitation, and as soon as he's inside, he places his bag securely between his legs and proceeds to fasten the belt with his wet hands, still shaking with cold. He's never imagined that entering a heated car could bring him this much joy, but it does. He feels calmer now, as though a big chunk of weight has been taken from his shoulders in a split of a moment. He pushes his wet hair off of his forehead, nudges the drops of rain off of his eyelashes, and only then, lands his eyes on the other man inside the car.</p><p>The driver doesn't look like the worst case scenario guy Mark has prepared himself to face. He's much younger than that, more good-looking too. If there's any first impression he gives off, it's that of a high school senior smoking behind the gym. Or a manga character. The handsome main protagonist.</p><p>"So where you going?" the driver asks, with his lips straight out of a manga. One hand on the wheel, the other on the ignition key, he's watching Mark with a calm expression, his angular jaw relaxed but eyes warily narrowed. The coarsely cut features of his face contrast with the flamboyant hairstyle of his bloody red hair. It's tied up in a pigtail bun with black roots visible where the bangs start. "What's your destination?"</p><p>And that is Mark's first obstacle. He doesn't know. He hasn't thought of that yet.</p><p>"My destination?"</p><p>The man reaches for a package of cigarettes and lights a match, as if expecting Mark's final response to take a while, unwilling to drive without hearing it first. "Yeah. Your destination. As in, where should I take you." He brings the match to the cigarette between his lips, then blows it off and tosses on the floor. The torrential rain drums against the roof of the car, and when the man exhales, the smoke seems to fill every square centimeter of the car. Mark involuntarily coughs.</p><p>"Wherever you're going," he replies at last.</p><p>The man looks at Mark again and Mark notices traces of mascara on his eyelashes.</p><p>There's a pause. The man's mascara-painted eyes take a good look at Mark's face.</p><p>"Whatever you say, kid," he eventually says, strongly accentuating the last word, like he wants Mark to know that he knows. He starts the engine and they drive back onto the road, darkness enveloping the inside of the car.</p><p>That's how they first met.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The morning after sleeping at Yuta's house for the first time, Mark has it recorded at the back of his mind like a feature-length film.</p><p>It's the sound of a synthesiser that wakes him up, and the moment he opens his eyes, he's immediately hit by a wave of cold sweat. Because he isn't in his own bed. The one he wakes up in is so spacious Mark would have to roll over a couple times to reach its other end, and the duvet he's covered with feels prickly and heavy on his body. It smells of cigarettes Mark doesn't smoke and cologne Mark doesn't use. And when he looks around, eyes darting to and fro, scanning the old set of furniture painted white and peeling off, with golden handles that are peeling off too, he realises he's never been to this place before.</p><p>He's slept in someone else's bed. And he doesn't remember whose.</p><p>Standing up so quickly, Mark blacks out for a second, and while reaching for something to hold onto, he pushes a clothing rack on wheels that must have suddenly materialised itself at the edge of Mark's vision and which is so overloaded with satin bathrobes and tackily patterned shirts, it almost falls over.</p><p>The synth pop grows louder. It muffles Mark's clumsy movements in the bedroom.</p><p>He's still wearing his yesterday's clothes and it comes as a relief to discover no signs of someone else having taken them off of him. He has his socks on, his jeans, t-shirt and hoodie. And there's his bag lying by the bed, where he might have thrown it sloppily the previous day, containing all of his essential belongings. He kneels on the floor and fumbles inside to find his wallet untouched, in the very same pocket Mark packed it into, with the same amount of cash he's put in.</p><p>Only when he's stepping towards the half-open door, the memories gradually come back to him, like emerging from behind a fog. He remembers getting inside the car, some bits of the conversation he's had with the man with bloody red hair.</p><p>In the hall, stopping by the railings, he spots the aforementioned red head downstairs, in the area that appears to be either a kitchen or a living room but really neither of the two. Pieces of furniture that have nothing to do with one another stand set in a weird half-circle, fridge next to armchair, armchair next to cooker. Then a voice announces, "Your kid woke up," and Mark realises, with a startle, that he's the kid. He's been detected.</p><p>The voice he will later know to be Taeil's, one of the permanent residents in Yuta's communal property, a punk rocker you only hear the stories about, chairs thrown onto the stage, performers merging with the audience, breaking the fourth wall and fighting with the crowd type of thing. Blood on the guitar strings. Make it organic music.</p><p>Downstairs, both men lift their heads and stare at where Mark's staring down at them from behind the railings.</p><p>In the daylight that seeps into the house, filtrated by what seems to be motionless clouds of dust and smoke, Mark has the opportunity to have a good look at the man he met the day before.</p><p>He's dressed in a pink, calf-length bathrobe with pearl buttons. There's piercings on his ears, one long, dangly earring and a tattoo that starts on his neck and disappears somewhere underneath the pink satin. In one hand, he's holding a glass of coffee. With the other, he directs a cigarette out of his mouth and towards Mark.</p><p>"Hey," he tells Mark, pointing at him. Smoke momentarily blurs his flamboyant figure. "Remind me your name, kiddo."</p><p>The other man, later to be known as Taeil, is standing behind Yuta, his body clad in a leather jacket and propped against the back of a leather sofa. He, too, is smoking and staring at Mark, as if curious to hear the answer but only a little bit. The song changes.</p><p>"Has he just moved in?" Taeil asks.</p><p>Yuta bops his head to Mark. "Are you moving in, kid?" He doesn't give Mark any time to respond, though. "We met during last night's downpour. Boy got kicked out of home and was hitchhiking, so I thought to myself, time for a good deed." Speaking to Taeil, he gestures with the glass of coffee. Then pauses, takes a drag on his cigarette and asks Mark, "Is that correct?"</p><p>Constant smoking slows Yuta's speech. Every other sentence, there's a pause for a drag. Yuta's just that kind of person that you remember many details about. Very specific, striking in the little things he does.</p><p>Frozen to the spot, Mark finds himself reluctantly nodding his head, and while looking at the two older men, he grows self-conscious and proceeds to pat his hair down.</p><p>"You eat lasagne?" Taeil asks him, words moving out of his mouth alongside curls of smoke. And only then does Mark realise he's been starving.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>There are four other men living in the house, at the time Mark appears in it.</p><p>Throughout the morning, they all bustle about the kitchen, walking in and out of it, spreading mud over the floor tiles, preparing food and smoking cigarettes, saying a word or two on their way someplace else. None of them, however, pays much attention to Mark, seated in a corner, in his yesterday's clothes smelling of rain. And he has no idea how many minutes or hours pass since he finished his portion of lasagne, as if time functioned here in a different way than in the outside world. There's no clock and nobody appears to be in a hurry. Without a word, Yuta disappears from the room and then comes back, all of his movement blurred in Mark's eyes. He has a headache and the only thing he's certain of and which acts as a proof of time passing is that heap of cigarettes growing bigger in the ashtray.</p><p>Finally, Yuta sits back at the table. He's now dressed in a striped shirt, jeans jacket thrown on top. Cigarette in between his lips, he lights it up and goes, "So. Any dads or aunts looking for you right now?" It partly sounds like a joke, partly like a serious question. Mark doesn't respond immediately. "I'm asking because these days I'm trying to keep myself out of trouble." A flick from his index finger. "With law, I mean. I just wouldn't like to have people come here tell me I kidnapped their kiddo."</p><p>"No."</p><p>"You mean nobody?" One arm flung over the back of the chair, Yuta leans in and looks Mark in the eye. "Nobody's looking for you?"</p><p>"I don't think so."</p><p>Yuta nods his head. Flick. "So how old are you exactly?"</p><p>Mark takes a moment to respond, rather unwillingly. "Seventeen. For the next five months only."</p><p>"Really? You look more like a sixteen. It's the angel face." He makes a vague move with his cigarette, like he's pointing at something on Mark's face. "So you don't want to explain to me why I found you on the side of the road? In the downpour?"</p><p>"Not really."</p><p>"Fine." Flick.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>And so Mark stayed. For more than five months. A year turned into another one, and then it's two years later when Johnny appears.</p><p>How Mark meets Johnny for the first time is that some day he walks into the house and finds Johnny's leather jacket scattered on the first step of the staircase. Automatically, he picks it up and walks on.</p><p>In the corridor, he finds a shirt, then a belt, a trail of clothes and a trail of the loudspeaker's cable, both leading into the open doorway to the master bedroom. Eyes on the floor, cautious but curious, with a bizarre interest piquing in spite of himself, Mark collects the clothes and puts them on the armchair. He lifts the stylus and switches off the gramophone that must have been turning for a few hours now. It's 3 am. In the bedroom left ajar, to which doorstep he carefully tiptops, he finds Yuta's limbs lying entangled with someone else's limbs, together under one duvet. There's little detail Mark can see in the semi-darkness, but they're both naked and Yuta's head is snuggled against the other man's arm, whose identity remains hidden behind his hair.</p><p>Mark looks at them for a longer moment, then leaves, making as little noise as humanly possible.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Johnny isn't exactly the first one to come.</p><p>Living with Yuta for more than two years now, Mark has met many of Yuta's previous lovers, a collection of curious individuals, in some respects well deserving of where they found themselves at Yuta's side. Aspiring poets. Junkies on detox and then back at it. Band members. Especially band members. Lead singers for the most part. Some of them moved in, even though it's never more than a few days that they stayed. Others visited the house for a couple of weeks in a row and then nothing's heard from them ever again.</p><p>Mark doesn't exactly keep track, but he's always interested in seeing the newest pick.</p><p>The other tenants change almost just as often, and most of those Mark met on his first day in the house are no longer to be seen. The stripper who lived in a room downstairs and whom Yuta loved visiting at work. Or the pair of junkies who occupied an upstairs room with a balcony. From the original group, only Mark's still there. And Taeil.</p><p>Taeil's a guy who organises a new rock back every couple of months, all of them having names like the Earth Dies or the Big Fall or the Gang of Five and all of them inevitably breaking up. Mark has lost count of those too.</p><p>The thing Mark will only know later is that Yuta has come to know Johnny through Taeil's latest goth post-punk project, whose name is the Naked Supper and which in all likelihood isn't made to last long either.</p><p>And so the following day, both men appear downstairs, late in the morning, because nobody has decided to wake them up earlier, like there's any point in ever waking Yuta up.</p><p>Yuta steps down the staircase with a catlike gait and proceeds to waltz in between the old furniture, right into the dining room area. He's already smoking and his voice comes out coarse when to everyone gathered, he says, "Morning," and everyone includes Taeil, busy lazily zipping through tv channels, and Mark, finishing yesterday's cold pizza.</p><p>Following Yuta is the man whose big arms Mark recognises having been entangled around Yuta at 3 am at night. The new lover boy.</p><p>He's a well built man, wearing a sleeveless black t-shirt and a pair of used jeans, of a slightly lighter hue where they stretch tight around his muscled thighs. His brown hair is partly licked back, partly falling into his eyes, like he's made an attempt at taming them in the mirror but failed and didn't care anyway. He greets Taeil, his bandmate, then lights a cigarette given to him by Yuta, and as the muscles of his arms move, Mark has to consciously drag his eyes away, feeling his body instantly heat up.</p><p>Which hasn't ever happened before.</p><p>"So that's your kid?" First words Mark hears the man say. In a husky low voice.</p><p>Mark frowns and turns towards Yuta. "This joke stopped being funny like two years ago," he says, trying to sound offended. Yuta sets the kettle on their filthy cooker. "You guys can quit calling me that already."</p><p>He's waiting for Yuta's reaction but all he gets is the stranger plopping down on the chair beside him. The man, later to be known as Johnny, he looks at Mark with mild interest and even though Mark has little to no experience in the field, he can sure recognise the face of someone who's just received a morning blowjob. Stirring his eyes away, he winces.</p><p>"So you've lived there for a long time," Johnny comments.</p><p>Coming up to the table, Yuta places an ashtray in front of Johnny and Johnny flicks his cigarette.</p><p>"People come and people go, and Mark's still there," Yuta replies, with laughter in his voice, partly like it's funny and partly like it's something he's happy about. Mark doesn't really know.</p><p>Johnny smiles back at Yuta. "Means you're a good dad," he retorts. They both chuckle and Mark feels like someone just knocked the air out of his lungs.</p><p>The scene continues.</p><p>Propping his elbows on the table and folding his arms, Yuta leans towards Johnny until their faces are inches apart. For a moment, they stare into each other's eyes and Mark's sure it'll end with a loud, wet kiss, performed right in front of him, like Mark has seen Yuta give many men before, many men who came and went, and everyone forgot about them anyway, but then it doesn't happen. "You gotta treat the adopted ones like they're your own," Yuta concludes, and moves away. Ashes land in the ashtray as he goes.</p><p>Trying to remind the couple of his existence, Mark butts in for the last time. "Very funny." He's feeling degraded and strangely breathless, and as he stands up from his chair, he accidentally pushes the table on which the leftovers of his pizza are still lying. Both Yuta and Johnny watch him put his jacket on; Taeil remains uninvolved. His eyes are on the TV and his body doesn't give off a sign of breathing. He's so used to ignoring Yuta and his lovers. Even when they happen to be his bandmates.</p><p>"So where you going, Mark?" Yuta asks.</p><p>Johnny reaches for the piece of pizza Mark has just been biting into.</p><p>"To work?" Mark's eyebrows move up his forehead. "Is that even a question?"</p><p>Yuta shrugs; Johnny nods his head with interest. Chewing on Mark's pizza, he asks Yuta, "So he has a job?" as if Mark wasn't there and couldn't answer himself.</p><p>"My working-class hero," Yuta jokes. "Have a good day, Markie. Think about me when you're away."</p><p>One last blush colours Mark's neck before he heads to the front door, on his way out hearing the conversation continue, amidst pearls of laughter and the morning news blasting from the TV.</p><p>Spool backwards.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>It's two months since moving into Yuta's house.</p><p>The white paint on the kitchen furniture is blistered and peeling off, and while watching Yuta's morning routine in silence, Mark picks at it absent-mindedly, prying it off with his fingernails. Every morning he gets back to where he's finished prying last time, and every morning there's less white paint on the dining table where Mark's blob of a body lies motionless in front of an empty plate. Yuta's standing with his back to Mark so he can't see it happen.</p><p>Yuta wakes up at noon. At one pm, he descends the creaking staircase and graces the living room with his well-rested silhouette clad in his usual pink velvet bathrobe. Right after the entrance, he lights up a cigarette on the gas cooker and puts it into his mouth. While smoking, he grinds coffee and waits for the water to boil in the kettle, looking through the greyish window at the street outside. The city is a post-industrial desert, everyone moving out of the downtown right to the suburbs and landlords setting fire to their properties to receive the insurance money.</p><p>Sometimes instead of looking at the street, Yuta's reading a book, bending it in his one hand, eyes glued to the current page. When the kettle whistles, he pours the boiling water into a mug. Water runs through the freshly grinded coffee in a paper filter that's sitting in the dripper, on top of the mug. Then, with the coffee in his right hand, book in his left, cigarette in mouth, he finally sits at the table.</p><p>Mark stops picking at the paint.</p><p>He likes to think of Yuta's morning routine as a little performance of hands and kitchen utensils that is very pleasant to view.</p><p>"Morning," Mark says and immediately after winces. The word comes inadequately loud for the present moment, so he lowers his voice before continuing. "What you reading?"</p><p>There is a pause. Yuta looks over the book, at Mark's face, then back at the book, turning it in his hands to check the cover. "Sociology?" he replies, like he isn't sure of his answer. It's one book among many others, belonging to his aunt's collection.</p><p>In the morning, which is actually afternoon, in the kitchen, which is neither a kitchen nor a living room, Yuta acts different than during nights, when he gets drunk with the other guys, listening to loud music and laughing at the top of his lungs. Seated before his fumy coffee and flipping the pages of an anonymous book, Yuta looks like the calm personified, which couldn't have been said about him just a couple of hours ago. At the synth pop night.</p><p>It's hard to adjust when you can't quite tell who you are dealing with.</p><p>With his parents, Mark had those things long figured out. His mother wanted as much contact and conversation as possible, slamming into Mark's bedroom on every occasion and asking all sorts of questions, even if only for the sake of hearing another human's voice. His father, on the other hand, liked to talk mostly about himself. Cruising around the house, he conducted long-format monologues about the events that happened at work, with backstories and side characters and re-occuring themes, expecting nothing more than a nod of Mark's head.</p><p>He tries not to think about the two of them. At all.</p><p>Clearing his throat, he asks, rather tentatively, "So... you don't have a tv here, huh?"</p><p>Leading the cigarette a straight line from his mouth to the ashtray, Yuta says, "No."</p><p>"No internet connection either?"</p><p>Leading his eyes an uphill slope from the page of the book to Mark's eyes, Yuta repeats, "No." Then he makes an apologetic half-smile. "I mean, we don't have a computer." He doesn't immediately redirect his attention back to the book, clearly expecting another question to come. The man's shirt is covered with flowers and his hair is slightly wavy, damp from a shower, tied back with a rubber band.</p><p>"What about a phone?"</p><p>Yuta sighs. He places an elbow on the table and his chin on top of his hand. "Do you need to contact someone? Is that it?"</p><p>Frowning, Mark brings his both hands off the table and puts them on his lap where Yuta can't see how he fidgets with his fingers. "No, not really. That's not the point."</p><p>"Are you bored then?" Yuta's eyes seem to light up at the challenge of a guessing game arising from their conversation. His eyebrows move upwards with clear anticipation.</p><p>"I was just thinking..." Mark starts again. "Since we're sitting here together and it's just an awkward silence, I mean, it is for me, I don't know about you, really-- I'm not assuming anything-- I was just thinking I should start a conversation. Or something."</p><p>Yuta picks up his mug and takes a mouthful of coffee. From behind the mug, then, emerges a smile, casting wrinkles under the man's eyes. "A conversation with me?"</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>After the Rockets and Hope break up, Taeil's next music band project is the Earth Dies. That's the first one Mark sees perform.</p><p>One evening Yuta comes into Mark's bedroom and says they're going to the bar. He always uses the definite article, as if expecting Mark to know what place or what person Yuta refers to the moment he says it. The strip club. The drag house. The junkie.</p><p>They've only known each other for three months.</p><p>So Yuta walks into Mark's bedroom, cigarette in his hand and a pall of smoke coming with him as usual, and he says, "If you wanna go with us, get ready, kiddo."</p><p>Mark doesn't think he should be going anywhere because technically speaking, he's still seventeen and they shouldn't let him in, but he always goes and nobody ever asks him about his age anyways.</p><p>The bar's dimly lit and it smells like piss, and everyone present is already so drunk they would love each and every one of Taeil's bands. That's what Yuta says. "Even the Gallows Platform. And they played garbage." When Mark looks at him questioningly, Yuta shrugs. "I'm just being honest. You know I love Taeil. He's like my older brother. I always cheerlead his musical projects."</p><p>They're sitting at the back of the bar, a table for two farthest from the stage. Yuta's dressed in a thin turtleneck with a pastel-coloured shirt on top, blue, pink and green, done up except for the last two buttons. It seems a little too tight for Yuta's broad shoulders, which Mark guesses it's what the man was going for. Yuta's the confident type. When he looks at his reflection in the mirror, he likes what he sees. He smiles to himself.</p><p>There's a couple of people who greet Yuta as they pass by, and then Yuta goes to the bar to order himself aqua velva, which is what he always drinks at places like this.</p><p>Coming back to their table, Yuta smiles. "You look really good in this shirt," he says. He sets the drink on the table, sits down and reaches for the collar of Mark's shirt with the hand that's also holding a cigarette.</p><p>"It's your shirt," Mark reminds him in a blank voice.</p><p>"I thrifted it for you but now it's yours." Yuta flicks the cigarette into the ashtray and leans in to put the plastic straw between his lips. He takes the first sip on the drink and Mark turns his eyes to the stage. "I knew cheetah would suit you," Yuta comments.</p><p>Mark wants to retort, say that cheetah actually makes him look dumb, and Yuta's clothes in general look better on Yuta than himself, but in that moment, the band appears on the stage. Some people clap but most people don't; Yuta stands up and sends Taeil an imaginary kiss with his left hand, the one not holding a cigarette. The cigarette sparkles orange.</p><p>They watch the performance and in the meantime, Yuta tells Mark about Taeil's previous projects, in a voice that makes Mark think of parents speaking about their children's hobbies. He drinks his aqua velva and sometimes sings along when he's familiar with the lyrics. He seems to know much more about that Taeil guy than Mark had previously assumed.</p><p>There's a lull in their conversation, in which they both focus on Taeil's guitar solo, and then Yuta leans towards Mark. "Something tells me you weren't exactly the party type back in high school." He means it as a joke, and even though Mark doesn't find it funny, Yuta's smile makes him smile too.</p><p>"Really? What betrayed me?" he asks, in a half amused, half embarrassed voice.</p><p>"Everything, to be honest." There's a pause and it seems like Yuta's about to ask a question, but stops himself the moment it reaches his tongue. He pouts instead.</p><p>"Well," Mark says. "I guess I wasn't lucky enough to know the kind of people who would, you know, invite me to all those super cool parties everyone talks about in the school corridors."</p><p>Yuta picks up his glass. "We can make up for it." He takes a sip, and then reaches to his jeans to bring out his package of cigarettes. "When you're eighteen, that is. No drinking before then."</p><p>Watching Yuta light up another cigarette this night, fourth or fifth, while moving his right leg to the rhythm, Mark clears his throat, suddenly distracted. He looks for something to say and opts for the first question that comes to his mind. "So that's how we spend every weekend from now on?"</p><p>Yuta shrugs. "That's how <em>I </em>spend every weekend. You can tag along or not." Pause. Drag. Flick. "Second of all, that's how I spend every weekend <em>since always</em>."</p><p>He's about to continue what has now begun to sound like a scolding, but then something in his field of vision stops him midway through a sentence. Mark registers the exact moment Yuta's big eyes dart to the left and cease moving altogether, and the irritated expression vanishes from his the man's handsome face. One corner of his lips tugs into a smile. "Listen, Mark," he says, with only half of the attention he's given Mark before. He stands up and pushes the packet of cigarettes back into his jeans in a weirdly hurried gesture. "Taeil will get you home after the performance. Just wait for them to finish."</p><p>Mark lets out a surprised, "What?" and then their conversation is officially terminated.</p><p>With the cigarette smoke clouded around his head like a crown, Yuta proceeds to walk into the drunkenly moving mass of people, like pacing down the beach and into the ocean, his own moves gradually slowing down, becoming more rhythmical, and more sexy, and step after step, he joins some guy of whom Mark see nothing but a pair of blue-tinted aviation glasses. They dance the entirety of the song, every chorus blending further into the crowd, like disappearing beneath the surface of water, more and more, until Mark can no longer see either of them.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Mark's eighteen when the Big Fall happens. Taeil's next soon-to-be-failed project.</p><p>Mark doesn't differentiate between the bars and clubs they go to every other night, all of them blending together in Mark's head, into a shapeless mush of leathered bar stools, dancing brocade shirts and many, many glasses of alcohol.</p><p>"Whisky for Taeil," Yuta says, placing the first glass on their table. "And aqua velva for me and Mark." He puts down the next two glasses. Then he plops himself on the leather sofa, between Mark and Taeil, reflexively wrapping his arms around both men's necks, bringing them closer into something that could almost pass for a hug. Warmth is radiating from his body, and his voice betrays the tipsy state of his mind. A moment passes and he takes his arms away, leaning towards the table instead.</p><p>They continue the conversation Yuta's put on pause while going to order their drinks and which is about the Big Fall's performance. Yuta says something about the angst laden lyrics and the rich timbre of the vocalist's baritone, then Taeil makes a joke and they both laugh. He refers to the lyrics and Yuta agrees with him. They compare it with some other band and Mark doesn't mind not knowing it, because during this type of conversation he prefers remaining a voiceless listener anyway.</p><p>"It's not the kind of violence that's immediate that we're talking about," Taeil says, swirling whisky in his glass. "It's about the violence that's slowly bubbling out there in the background. Like nature's going to puke it out any minute, you know what I'm saying? That's what we were going for. That's what the guitar's doing." He pauses then and looks at Mark. "Hey." His voice is changed, all of a sudden. He sounds almost impatient. "There's a guy staring at you."</p><p>Mark makes a facial expression that says he has no idea what Taeil's talking about, and Taeil moves his glass in the direction. "Khaki pants."</p><p>Mark looks over his shoulder, Yuta does the same. Then he immediately looks back at Taeil. "I don't think I know him," he says, honestly.</p><p>And it's at that point that Yuta spills into tipsy laughter, making Mark feel like there's something the two men know and he clearly doesn't. "Mark," Yuta tells him. "I think he wants to say hi."</p><p>"What?" Mark narrows his eyes and Yuta keeps laughing.</p><p>It takes him a moment to stop and say, "Listen. If you're not interested, maybe go tell him that? Don't make him think you're playing hard to get."</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>What happens next, and Mark doesn't know how exactly, is that he's in a bathroom stall with the staring stranger pressing onto him with his body. He's around Yuta's age, taller and broader than Mark, and right in this moment, Mark has his arms around his neck as they are kissing. For the first time in his life, Mark realises the utility of music playing in public bathrooms. He can't anything but the music. Not even his own panting. It's so dark, with the coloured neons as the only source of light, that Mark can barely make out the details of the man's body. The man's right hand, he only notices it the moment it lands on his trousers, unzipping his fly. What feels like lightning flashes right through Mark's body.</p><p>"You are the cutest boy in the bar," the guy says, with one hand holding Mark's chin, with the other feeling Mark's hardening cock through his underwear. "Everyone's checking you out."</p><p>"Really?" Mark croaks. "I haven't noticed that." At the back of his muddled mind, he's vaguely aware of the fact that just outside the bathroom, a couple of steps away from its door, is the table at which both Yuta and Taeil might still be sitting, waiting for him to come back.</p><p>Sweat raises on the back of his neck.</p><p>"You're like a sheep among wolves."</p><p>Mark awkwardly chuckles. "Doesn't sound that pleasant to me."</p><p>"What about that? Is that pleasant?" The man slides his hand into Mark's underwear and skilfully grabs Mark's hard-on, bringing it out. Mark's body almost convulses. This has never happened to him before.</p><p>"Fuck."</p><p>"You have a very nice dick."</p><p>He starts stroking it, and it takes Mark a moment to reply with an awkward, "Thanks," as he tries to keep control over his body, which, without his permission, moves closer to the man.</p><p>"So, what's the deal?" the man asks, as he continues touching him. It sounds like a casual conversation. "You come here often?"</p><p>It's right then that Mark learns from experience how difficult it is to grasp any thoughts and spit any words when someone's steadily jerking you off, sending jolts of pleasure through your body. "No, I'm just-- You know that guy I was sitting with, so like, he comes here very often, and I just..." He has to pause and take a shaky breath in, "...I just tag along."</p><p>"Your boyfriend, I assume?"</p><p>Mark laughs, then runs out of breath. "No, definitely not, not a boyfriend." He starts slurring his words. "He just comes here often because this other guy sitting right next to him-- he's in the band, like, you know, they were performing tonight, their first performance, I mean, he's playing the bass and--" His voice cracks like a fifteen year old's. "Fuck."</p><p>And then. It happens. Just like that. He hasn't even realised that he was this close to release until it was already over.</p><p>The stranger's hand disappears from his crotch. "You came really fast," he comments, matter-of-factly, and hearing that, Mark's whole face grows hot red. The stranger's eyes shine in the dark of the bathroom.</p><p>"Fuck," he repeats. The cold air blowing inside from an open window does nothing to cool his heated skin. "Fuck. I'm sorry." He stirs, suddenly realizing that he should be doing something right now, with his hands. Ever since coming into the stall, or rather being pushed into it, he's been standing frozen, back against the partition. "Should I-- uh, should I help you finish off?"</p><p>The guy forces a smile, which is visible despite the gloom reigning in the room. He's already started stroking himself and Mark can't believe that what's now at the reach of his hand is a dick of someone whose name he doesn't know and is too embarrassed to ask for. "Stand still, don't say anything and keep looking pretty. I'll make it quick."</p><p>And that's what Mark does. Mostly because he's paralysed and doesn't have much choice. Jerking off, the stranger kisses him again, this time more aggressively, shoving his tongue down Mark's throat, and when he comes, he bites on Mark's bottom lip. Pause. The man reaches for toilet paper, hands it to Mark. They wipe themselves clear, and one second later, Mark's left alone.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The same night, back at home, Mark finds a handful of shiny, coloured packets thrown on his matress. They are packets of condoms.</p><p>"Always remember to keep it safe," is what Yuta says the next morning, over his otherwise silent mug of coffee. He sounds playful. Or so it seems to Mark.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>A couple of weeks later, they are during one of their usual trips. Thrift store? Check. Laundromat? Check. That sordid, shady-looking place selling jewellery, where you need to walk down a wobbly spiral metal staircase and the entrance is so tightly squeezed between the buildings you could miss it if you blinked? Check.</p><p>The passage of time is marked by the amount of jewellery adorning Yuta's skin. Every couple of weeks a new piercing appeared on Yuta's body, latest of which is localised on his navel. Mark saw it one time, peeking between a pair of low-waisted, baggy jeans and a tight t-shirt.</p><p>"You have some shopping list with you or you gonna go look for inspiration as we go?" Yuta asks, taking the key out of the ignition switch and checking himself in the rearview mirror, tucking a strand of pale red hair behind his ear. There is a new piece of jewellery dangling from his earlobe. What Yuta is asking about is Mark's dinner plans because it's Mark's turn to cook and he proposed that himself.</p><p>But as Mark unfastens his seat belt, and just as he's about to push the door open, his body freezes into motionlessness.</p><p>"Fuck."</p><p>The mere tone of Mark's voice immediately alerts Yuta. He turns towards Mark in a split second, hand on the back of Mark's seat, bringing his body closer and studying Mark's face in a close-up. "What's going on?" he asks, then looks at where Mark's eyes are fixated. A silhouette walking out of the supermarket.</p><p>There's a pause full of tension, and then Mark's releases an embarrassed laugh, letting the tension pop. "No-- nothing. I just... I thought I saw my father in the parking lot."</p><p>Yuta furrows his eyebrows. He keeps looking, even though technically he has no way of recognising any of Mark's relatives. "What?" he asks. "You sure it's not him?"</p><p>Mark drops his back against the seat, one hand running over his face. "Yeah-- I mean, no, it wasn't him."</p><p>Leaning towards Mark's seat, Yuta looks at him with a very direct glance. "Mark? Did you forget to tell me about something?"</p><p>Mark looks back at him. "What?"</p><p>"Is he... threatening you?" Before Mark can respond, his eyes big as two coins, Yuta continues, "Did your parents contact you and you didn't tell me about that?"</p><p>"No, no, no, no. I just-- I was shocked because... this dude, he just, he looked so similar. Damn."</p><p>Yuta sighs. He takes his hand from Mark's seat and slips it into a pocket of his jeans, pressing his back against his own seat. "Mark, listen to me." He isn't looking at Mark now, instead scrutinising the people in the parking lot, as if still expecting to see someone staring back into their car. "If there's something I should know about..." He lowers his voice. "You can tell me. You can tell me anything. And I mean it. For your own safety."</p><p>"It wasn't him."</p><p>He opens the door but Yuta's voice stops him from immediately getting out. "Do you really want to go?"</p><p>"What?"</p><p>"Mark. You're shaking."</p><p>Mark waves his hand dismissingly.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>It takes Mark three days.</p><p>There is only one bathroom in the entire house which is fully usable. It has both a walk-in shower and a bathtub and the water doesn't smell like rotten eggs the way it does upstairs. There is no lock on the door, though, and as Mark has come to learn by experience, nobody living in the house ever minds having a company during long showers.</p><p>Yuta's taking a bath when Mark walks in. He's lying in the bathtub, with bluish foam covering the entirety of his body underneath the water, and only his head, feet and one hand are outside. He's smoking a cigarette. Surprise, surprise.An ashtray lies on the bathtub beside his head.</p><p>"Can I... talk to you for like a second?"</p><p>Yuta transfers his gaze from his own toes to Mark's silhouette in the doorframe. He's surprised but only for a mere second. With the cigarette, he motions for Mark to walk in. "Wanna talk about something?" he asks.</p><p>"I just--" Mark comes up to the washing machine that broke down more than ten years ago and nobody bothered to throw it out. He props his bottom against it and crosses his arms. "If I tell you something here, in the bathroom, can it-- stay there?"</p><p>Yuta takes a long drag on his cigarette, then flicks the ashes. Not for a second does he look away. He has a habit of carefully studying his interlocutor's face, in a piercing way that Mark has never felt being stared at by anybody else.</p><p>"Yeah, Mark, absolutely," he replies at last. His voice is comforting, secure. "Whatever we talk about here, in the bathroom, it stays there. The moment we walk out, we don't ever have to talk about it again."</p><p>A sound climbs out of Mark's throat, something between a sigh of relief and an embarrassed chuckle. "That's perfect. Thanks."</p><p>They look at one another for a moment and then, without being prompted to by Mark, Yuta closes his eyes. His head rests against the bathtub. "I'm listening."</p><p>Without Yuta's eyes directly on him, so piercingly patient, Mark counts in his head.</p><p>"When you took me home that night," he starts, then pauses, cringing at the sound of his words. He looks at Yuta and Yuta's face doesn't express any emotion. The only movement of Yuta's body in the bathtub is when he puts the cigarette into his mouth and then flicks it into the ashtray. Drag. Flick. It's almost calming. After every drag comes a flick. "Well, I wasn't exactly kicked out of home."</p><p>Yuta nods his head slightly. "You never seemed to me like the type parents kick out of home."</p><p>Mark brings one hand to his face and brushes it against his mouth. "My parents divorced when I was in primary school." Pause. He looks at Yuta. Eyes still closed, Yuta doesn't respond. He's letting Mark continue. "They lived far away from one another and I had to travel to keep in touch with them. Seven months at my dad's, five at my mum's. Leaving the school and then coming back. All the kids in class forgetting we were friends. That kind of situation."</p><p>He looks at Yuta. Yuta nods his head. With his eyes still closed, he doesn't stir in the bathtub other than to take the cigarette out of his mouth and release smoke.</p><p>For a moment, Mark stares at his own hands. "And then what?" Yuta encourages him.</p><p>"Well, so my mum kind of found a new husband... and my dad..."</p><p>"Found a new wife?"</p><p>"Exactly." Mark takes a deep breath in. "And when I was in middle school, my mum had a new kid..."</p><p>"And your dad had a new kid too?"</p><p>"Exactly." Mark takes a look at where Yuta is lying in the bathtub. The foam seems to be slightly dissipating, but too slowly to reveal Yuta's naked body underneath it. The bath smells like vanilla. And fruits. And cigarette smoke. "And every time I visited one of them, I had to share the room with this other kid. They hated me for that. Everyone was bothered and I can't say that it surprises me."</p><p>"You felt like you were interfering?"</p><p>Mark nods his head, then remembers Yuta can't see it. "Exactly. I mean, yeah, that's right." Pause. "Mum and dad hated each other's guts so they wouldn't even make phone calls. I had to prepare everything myself. Most of my childhood was travelling on the train through the country."</p><p>Yuta hums. "Were you on your way from one home to the other when we met?"</p><p>"My mum hates my dad's guts so she wouldn't call him. And he hates her just as much so he wouldn't call her neither. So," he pauses, "I guess they didn't pay attention."</p><p>"When you disappeared?" Finally, Yuta opens his eyes and looks at Mark. "Sneaky bastard." He lifts the cigarette-holding hand and points at the shelf on the opposite wall. "Can you grab this shampoo for me?"</p><p>Mark pushes himself off of the washing machine, gladly having something to do with his hands, with his body that now feels so heavy like it weights more and more every second, dragging him down to the floor. Giving Yuta the bottle, Mark takes a sit on the floor, back against the bathtub. "I just-- I wanted to see if they would notice."</p><p>"Notice what?" Yuta's hand moves towards Mark's head. The smoke is now in Mark's eyes and Yuta's fingers in Mark's hair. The man catches a strand and twists it. It's a soft touch. Comforting. But also strangely intimate. Mark doesn't know what to think about it.</p><p>"That... I'm missing," he blurts out. "In their lives. I mean... Yeah."</p><p>"And they didn't notice?"</p><p>"No. They didn't."</p><p>Yuta moves in the bathtub, causing a commotion in the water. He folds his arms on the edge of the bathtub, chin on arm, cigarette between lips, and leans towards Mark. Droplets of water fall onto Mark's face. "My dad had a more business like approach to marriage," Yuta tells him, with the cigarette in one corner of his mouth, distorting his voice. "More of a chain store type of situation."</p><p>"You mean by that?"</p><p>Yuta's voice makes it clear that it's a story he's well experienced in telling to people. "His average marriage lasted for six years and then he would move on to set another one. So when I was six, they divorced and I never saw him again." Pause. "And then my mother died."</p><p>"I'm sorry."</p><p>"I lived at my friend's, then at my grandma's... It's like living nowhere, you know?"</p><p>Mark nods.</p><p>"I guess that's why I like people moving in there," Yuta tells him. "I'm forming my own family." In the way he looks at Mark, there can be seen an emotion. A fatherly type of feeling.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>At first, Mark sees Johnny as just another guy in a long row, who won't last longer than any of his predecessors. In his head, Mark already makes bets on how many weeks it will take for Yuta to kick him out.</p><p>An early riser, unlike Yuta himself, the man comes downstairs at eight am. He's wearing his brief shorts and a pair of plastic flip flops for the guests, and he looks exactly the way you would imagine a guy can look after a whole night of fucking. His panting and grunting, and his name repeated by Yuta like a mantra, between long strings of blissful moaning, bed hitting the wall, springs squeaking, was all Mark could hear from his bedroom before finally deciding to come downstairs to sleep on the couch.</p><p>At the entrance to the kitchen, he greets Mark with a smug smile, like he knows perfectly well what's on Mark's mind.</p><p>"Tough night, huh?" he says, opening the fridge to bring out a hot pocket. When he shuts it close, a hanging cupboard opens itself, and when he looks at it, he notices the moulded wallpaper nearby. "This place could use some renovation."</p><p>Sitting at the table and playing with the peeling paint, Mark clears his throat. "I think Yuta likes it this way."</p><p>Johnny looks at him over his shoulder before stuffing the hot pocket into the microwave. His chest is just as broad, muscled and hairy as Mark imagined it to be. "You mean he likes it dilapidated and stinky?"</p><p>"He says it's 'a matter of aesthetics'." Seeing how Johnny frowns at his words, he changes the subject. "So you're in Taeil's band? What do you play?"</p><p>There's a moment of indecision on Johnny's face, a little blank space of emotional infinity from which what finally emerges is a proud smile. Lured by Mark's interest, Johnny turns around, leans with his both hands against the kitchen unit and it almost looks like a pose out of an underwear advertisement. Mark's heart jumps at the sight. "Bass guitar. And I do a little bit of vocals too. That is, until we find someone who can actually sing." He smiles.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>In some respects, Johnny is a perfect example of the kind of guys Yuta brings home, a final product of image superimposition, dressed in the same oversized rock band attire, walking around with the same air of inaccessibility and simultaneous lack of concern that Mark has been long familiarised with. He pops into Yuta's life, with his strong handshakes and his stringy brown hair, and in consequence, he trespasses into Mark's life as well.</p><p>Everyone Mark knows is someone Yuta knew first.</p><p>Johnny and Yuta spend more time outside the house than inside, roaming the streets just the two of them, roving from bar to bar just for the sake of it, and once they come back home, somewhere around three am, it's usually to have sex. They shut the front door with a bang and the bang is how Mark registers their arrival. Carrying a desultory conversation that echoes off the walls, full of drunken laughs and inaudible whispers, they lead their steps to Yuta's bedroom but usually fail to reach its doorstep anyway, instead settling on any spot where Yuta can sit and wrap his legs around Johnny's waist.</p><p>They get so loud when they have sex. Mark has to escape downstairs.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>After one of their fucking sessions, Mark wakes up at noon. On the living room couch.</p><p>The first voice he registers belongs to Yuta. It's the morning discussion at the kitchen table.</p><p>"So the way he depicted deities is that he made them look androgynous," says Yuta's voice. Sitting up on the couch, Mark sees the man seated on a kitchen unit, with one foot on its surface, microwave inches from his butt. Yuta's hair is loose, reaching almost his shoulders, uncombed, coloured light violet. "Combining the qualities of both genders meant that the deity escaped humanly categorisation, and the way human mind works is it puts labels on things because labels pressupose the attachment to other units of information and facilitate an instant reaction. When there's no label, the human doesn't know how to act. He's scared. The deity is frightening."</p><p>Mark moves the blanket off of his legs and stands up, and as he's standing up, Johnny emerges from behind the wall, sitting on one of the kitchen chairs, none of which are matching, neither one another nor the table. He has his left ankle resting against his right knee, one elbow propped on the table, and he's smiling at Yuta. "I think I lost you somewhere at the beginning, but I do agree you look god-like today."</p><p>Yuta shrugs his shoulders, smiling. "It's you who asked the question." He pauses and lights up a cigarette. They exchange a look which is flirtation and admiration. Mark sees it from afar, not yet seen by the men. Then Yuta changes the subject, "Speaking of things that are hard to understand, I've heard about yesterday's rehearsal. During which the new vocalist allegedly called your lyrics garbage."</p><p>Johnny's voice changes in an instant. "And I said, either you sing the way it's written on paper, or you can fuck off, you fuckface." He pauses. "Allegedly."</p><p>Only then Mark hears Taeil's voice, localising him somewhere next to Johnny. "And he said he'd rather fuck off then. Which surprised nobody."</p><p>"Johnny. You're such a superb negotiator, babe."</p><p>And then Mark walks in. Johnny's eyes land on him in a split second.</p><p>"Hi, Markie. What you eating for breakfast?" Pointing at the fridge with his cigarette, Johnny says, "We've got a two day old pizza. Some frozen food. And carrots grown in your own garden." He looks at Yuta. "Tell me again. Why did you grow carrots in the garden?"</p><p>Mark knows the answer. He's heard it a thousand times. "Having a garden of our own," Yuta explains, "makes us more independent from the corporate supermarkets--"</p><p>Taeil cuts his speech short. "Can you stop acting like carrots are a revolutionary act? I just came here for breakfast."</p><p>Once again, Johnny's cigarette points at Mark. "Doesn't Mark work in a supermarket, though?" he asks Yuta.</p><p>Yuta jumps off of the kitchen unit and flicks his cigarette ashes to the ashtray lying on the table. Walking to the fridge, Mark brushes his shoulder against Yuta's. "It's a convenience store," Yuta says. "So that's a bit different." He looks Mark in the face and smiles. "You coming with me today?"</p><p>Mark peeks over his shoulder at where Johnny's muscled arms are crossed on top of the table, perfectly visible in the sleeveless t-shirt he's wearing. Cigarette in mouth, he's looking at Yuta with feigned hurt on his face. "What about me?"</p><p>Yuta huffs out a laugh. "You need your vocalist back. Or so I heard."</p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>i hope i come up with ideas what should happen next?</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>